Scott Brison, the veteran Nova Scotia MP and former Treasury Board president who resigned from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet earlier this month, has brought his own lawyer to a hearing in Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s criminal case in a bid to protect his privacy and his reputation.

Brison’s lawyer has entered the hearing so Brison can hand over personal correspondence to the court in response to subpoenas from Norman’s defence team, which seek both official and non-official communications.

Although the Department of Justice has been coordinating a massive effort to collect subpoenaed documents, Brison declined to disclose his personal emails to the government. Instead, Brison’s lawyer informed the government in December that he preferred to disclose such documents to the court independently.

“Mr. Brison has a privacy interest in the contents of his personal email communications,” said the application for standing filed last week by Peter Mantas of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. “These include both his own records, and those of his constituency office.”

Brison’s lawyer is scheduled to make arguments on Wednesday at the hearing, which is reviewing requests by Norman’s defence team for a trove of documents the government has deemed classified — but which Norman’s lawyers contend they need in order to mount his defence. The hearing sat for five days in December, and continued on Tuesday for three days.

Norman, who was the second-highest officer in the military, is accused of leaking cabinet secrets to help ensure the government moved forward with a $700-million project to have Quebec-based Davie Shipbuilding provide a supply ship for the navy. He faces a single count of breach of trust.

Among the documents Norman’s defence team is seeking are all communications between Brison (including his staff and his constituency office) and representatives of Irving Shipbuilding.

Irving, a Davie rival, had written to cabinet ministers urging them not to go forward with the Davie project. Brison has said he had no communication with Irving about the project outside of the letter they sent to him. Irving has denied claims they made any attempt at political interference, and has already been granted standing in the hearing.

Brison’s lawyer says he is cooperating in the disclosure process and “does not seek to hinder Vice-Admiral Norman’s efforts to obtain the production of documents relevant to his defence.”

However, Brison is looking to protect against “unmerited intrusions into his privacy,” and to make sure the requests are clear, his court application claims.

He is also seeking to protect his reputation, the application says, particularly against the accusation that he is close to the Irving family that controls the shipbuilding firm. The defence has disclosed evidence that one witness told the RCMP that Brison was “Irving’s boy.”

“This pejorative comment (although apparently having its origins in a witness statement), and others like it, appear to suggest that the Applicant made his decision to review the naval supply ship procurement at the behest of Irving,” the application says. “Mr. Brison did not communicate with Irving in making his decision to review this procurement. Any such suggestion is speculative, unsupported by any evidence and is, in fact, false.”

The application says Brison “has an interest in ensuring that in the course of document disclosure being made in this matter, he is not unfairly targeted with gratuitous swipes at his integrity and reputation.”

General Jonathan Vance, the head of Canada’s military, was on standby to be called to the witness box on Tuesday, but the day was entirely taken up with questioning of a justice department paralegal who is coordinating the government’s effort to search for and collect subpoenaed documents.

Norman’s lawyers Marie Henein and Christine Mainville argue the government’s search has been lacklustre, and may have missed documents they need for Norman’s defence.

Vance is now scheduled to be questioned on Wednesday morning, where he will likely be grilled about his own interactions with journalists.

Norman’s lawyers will likely also press Vance on an allegation that surfaced in December that the Department of National Defence purposefully used pseudonyms for Norman to obstruct attempts to disclose records about him through access-to-information requests.

Mainville filed an exhibit on Tuesday that includes some of the pseudonyms used for Norman in documents, such as “the boss” and “C34”, a reference to him being the 34th commander of the navy.

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